


A Worthwhile Endeavor

by ant5b



Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: AU, F/F, the spear of selene is still an artifact of some kind
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 16:12:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14719376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: Magica has given up everything in order to enact her revenge on Scrooge McDuck. There was only one time she ever regretted it.





	A Worthwhile Endeavor

Magica De Spell used to be the most powerful sorcerer in the world.

Five hundred years ago she commanded armies, laid siege to entire kingdoms and challenged gods. She stood in the ashes of Alexandria and held aloft the secret of immortality, and against a tapestry of stars the philosopher’s stone gleamed the same crimson as her eyes.

Her name was revered,  _feared_ , across the four corners of the earth, and there was nothing stopping her from gaining ultimate knowledge—ultimate power.

There was  _nothing, nobody_  in her way—until Scrooge McDuck.

His Number One Dime was too tempting a prize, too coveted a talisman. It would grant her the Midas Touch, of this she was certain, and who knew how many other gifts. And it should have been easy to attain.

But decades of intense battle and foiled plans and increasingly frustrating failures drained her of her carefully cultivated magic, leaving her with an ageless husk and a handful of parlor tricks.

So Magica retreated to her cottage at the base of Mount Vesuvius to lick her wounds, and remained there for nearly twenty years. Slowly but surely she would rebuild her magical stores. She would have Scrooge’s dime, his  _life_ , as well as every other magical relic in his vault.

 

But near the end of her self-exile, the unexpected happened.

One day a plane crashed on the far side of the volcano, just past dawn. With little else to do, she took to her broom and sped over to the wreckage.

Whoever the pilot was, they were talented. The plane was mostly intact, only missing a wing and its stabilizers, though the smoke billowing out of the cockpit did not bode well for the pilot. It left a long furrow in the dirt and a scattering of metal parts, and no signs of life.

But then the door on the side of the plane was kicked open, and a female duck toppled out.

The pilot was on her knees, curling forward from the force of her harsh coughing.

Magica didn’t know what compelled her to speak. Curiosity, loneliness, instinct, or some mix of the three. But the result was the same.

“Are you alright?”

The pilot looked up at Magica floating above her, eyes wide in surprise. She was bleeding from a cut on her temple, and clutching her arm close to her side in a way that informed Magica that it was injured.

But then the pilot smiled, beautiful and devil-may-care. “Never better.”

Save the Number One Dime, that smile alone was the first thing in fifty years to catch Magica’s interest.

 

The pilot’s name was Della, and she was an adventurer.

Magica would come to learn that she was so much more.

After she repaired Della’s injured arm with a healing draft and a few well placed setting spells, the pilot didn’t leave right away. She called someone named “Donnie” on one of those strange cellular phones she’d started seeing crop up in the village, assured him that she was safe, and if he or their uncle could send a plane round for her when they found the time that would be great.

But then Della turned to Magica with bright, inquisitive eyes and asked her about the nature of her magic, because she’d met plenty of witches in her time but none as effortlessly powerful as herself.

And Magica found herself being drawn in because she considered Della equally interesting, especially the casual ease with which she discussed the supernatural. In that short afternoon she learned about how Della had bested Baba Yaga in a cooking competition and that she was pen pals with the goddess Selene, and Magica only wanted to learn more.

But the time came for Della to leave when her plane arrived for her, and Magica resigned herself to losing the first genuine conversation partner she’d had in three decades.

But Della smiled and pressed her cell phone into Magica’s hand, and said, “I’ll call you.”

Magica told her she was looking forward to it.

 

She told Della her name was Matilda, and she had never been more grateful of her foresight.

Names were powerful things; Della had known the potential danger she was putting herself in by giving Magica her true name. However, she was always careful only to refer to her many family members by their nicknames, like the worrywart “Donnie” and “Unc’” with the deep pockets and influence.

Magica could never be too careful. When one lived as long as she had, they garnered enemies the world over. It would be reckless to bandy about her true name without care, and Magica had never been careless.

Della wasn’t careless either. But she doesn’t wear her lies like a second skin, like Magica does. It’s not possible, not when Magica has centuries of experience on her.

This becomes more obvious than ever when Della slips up, in the most devastating of ways.

Della had made a habit of visiting Magica every few weeks, and their conversations would meander and wander for hours. They talked about everything, from magic and history to the books they had recently read— _Heracle’s Grimoire_ for her, and  _Tuck Everlasting_  for Della. She even helped Magica navigate her new cell phone, a gift from Della after she dropped her first one in a boiling cauldron.

It was during one of these talks that Della had asked how old she was.

“I think I recall it being rude to ask a woman her age,” Magica replied coyly, as she served them both tea.

Della laughed, but still looked curious enough that it told Magica that she genuinely wanted to know. Magica judged that the truth wouldn’t be detrimental to admit.

“Six hundred and twenty-seven years,” Magica told her, taking a sip from her cup of tea.

Della’s eyes widened incredulously. “No kidding! And I thought  _Scrooge_ was old.”

Magica choked on her tea. “ _Scrooge McDuck?”_

Almost immediately looking wary, Della nodded. “My uncle,” she admitted. “You know him?”

Magica buried her shock under a satin smile, and an appropriately abashed chuckle. “Know  _of_ him, yes. It would be impossible not to, even for a shut-in like myself.”

Even as Magica’s mind raced, she waited with keen eyes to see if Della bought her lie. By the way the furrow in her brow faded, it seemed like she had.

“I’m glad to hear you admit that you need to get out more,” Della said, smirking over the rim of her teacup.

She left the subject where it lay, but as Magica humored her by returning to the easy ebb and flow of their conversation, her mind never stopped churning. For the first time in fifty years, she had a chance of besting Scrooge McDuck.

Not only that; she had his  _niece_.

Magica ignored the small piece of her that ached at the sight of the smile Della graced her with.

 

The Spear of Selene was an artifact of legend and untold power.

Scrooge was searching for it. Della was helping him. Magica wanted it.

It took time, and careful thought out planning to invade Della Duck’s mind over the months since they first met. It was done piecemeal, ever since that fateful day she learned her friend’s identity. With a deft hand, Magica wove her influence into the very fabric of Della’s being, an unconscious pull that she would not be aware of until the deed was done.

With their every interaction, Magica essentially watered the seed she had planted within Della’s subconscious, strengthening the power of one key command.

_Bring me the Spear of Selene._

Magica did it as they argued over Edgar Raven Poe’s work, debated theology and challenged the universe. She did it as Della urged Magica to teach her how to create potions and hexes, and Della stood close to her side as they leaned over her simmering cauldron. She did it as Della showed her photos of her three newly hatched children, already glowing with pride as she told Magica how they would grasp her fingers, how they would smile when she entered the room. Magica did it as they sat on her porch, arms around each other and Della’s head on her shoulder.  

That small part of her that stung every time she saw Della’s smile had grown, until it nearly rivaled her desperation and dedication to besting Scrooge.

She thought of a future with Della Duck, the pilot who was good and just and kind and unlike anyone Magica had ever known. Where their lingering touches, with the promise of more, would come to fruition.

She thought of a future where Scrooge groveled at her feet, her magic restored. Where she stripped him of every title and inch of power and influence as he had done to her. With nary a thought she would turn everything he held dear to ruin, and gloat over his broken, defeated form.

The Spear of Selene was in her grasp, and with that, she would finally be powerful enough to enact her revenge on Scrooge and steal his Number One Dime.

In the end, there was only ever one course of action Magica was capable of following.

 

Nothing goes as planned.

Della must have had more freewill than she’d thought, more than Magica could have foreseen. Despite all her careful planning, months of scheming and preparation, months of spending time with Della, she forgets.

Della Duck is not one to be underestimated.

She leaves Scrooge a note.

Magica will realize this later, after the dust has settled as her physical form has been reduced to ash. When she can do little more than hover between this plane and the next, a tangled dance with limbo, she will see Scrooge again for the first time in fifty-three years, but he will be incapable of seeing her. She won’t be able to talk to him or touch him, no matter how desperately she claws at him. All she can do is hover at his shoulder.

She watches him read the note his niece left behind with trembling hands and hunched shoulders. She watches with disinterest as Scrooge isolate himself, watches the attempts his nephew makes at reconciliation, and the screaming matches that follow.

Magica watches, until the magical wards on the mansion and the Bin become too much for her and she flees lest they tear what remains of her spirit asunder.

 

Della had brought her the spear, but she’d also known that she had been manipulated into doing so.

They met at the summit of Mount Vesuvius, the sun on the brink of sinking beneath the horizon. Della had the spear clutched tightly in both hands, her expression a harsh intermingling of emotions.

“Did you do this?” she demanded as Magica approached.

“Yes,” Magica said. It was the least of what she had done, perhaps the most innocent betrayal she had ever committed. But she nearly faltered as she met Della’s burning gaze.

“I thought you were my friend,” Della bit out as Magica wrapped her hands around the spear as well. She was trembling in her fury, a sight to behold. But a tear made its way down her cheek and Magica realized there was grief there too.

“We were more than that,” Magica assured her, gentling her voice. Her palm ached with the need to cup Della’s cheek, to brush her tears away.

She kept her hands clasped tightly around the spear.

But she underestimated Della.

“I won’t let you hurt my family,” she said. And with that she wrenched the Spear of Selene out of Magica’s grasp, and snapped it in two over her knee.

Pure magical energy exploded outward from the shards of the spear, white-hot and brilliant. The resulting shockwave decimated Magica’s corporeal form instantaneously, leaving her only a scant wisp of consciousness; a shadow of her former self.

Della vanished, consumed by the spear’s blinding light, and nothing of her remained.

 

Magica was far from defeated. Her magic had been enough to save her, nevermind how little had been actually saved. She could come back from this setback, restore herself to something even greater than before. She had time to plan for any eventuality, and would make Scrooge suffer as she had always intended.

But in that moment, Magica was left with the memory of a smile and more alone than ever before.

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this, check out my other DT fics! And be sure to leave a comment below!


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